AshKHaving dropped the Zero DAC (review coming soon) back with Rob and Andy at TAG NZ, I seem to have returned with an ATC SIA2-150 integrated amplifier. It’s an impressively engineered, heavy beast, exactly what I don’t want to lug up a few flights of stairs. Now that it’s warmed up to its heavily Class A biased operating temperature just as the afternoon sun hits the windows, I’m starting to cook.
I have to admit that I can see the attraction of the integrated amp approach – you only need to find one open shelf on the rack and you don’t need reams of cables draped all over the place. I’m addicted to my Sachem monoblocks and I’m a tweaker, so I’m more-or-less happy to play preamplifier matching and cable draping games but sometimes I yearn for a simpler life.
Am I headed for a minimalist change of life? Poor old Gary Steel has lost his mojo to the point where he’s gone to active speakers and I know that if he could find a way to get rid of his preamp as well, he would.
The review is in progress and it may help clarify aspects of the downsizing dilemma that I’m having.
